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On the 03:25 UTC pass on January 26, 2018, AMSAT Vice President Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, announced that AO-92 had been commissioned and formally turned the satellite over to AMSAT Operations. AMSAT Vice President – Operations Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, then declared that AO-92 was now open for amateur use.

Initially, the U/v FM transponder will be open continuously for a period of one week. After the first week, operations will be scheduled between the U/v FM transponder, L-Band Downshifter, Virginia Tech Camera, and the University of Iowa’s High Energy Radiation CubeSat Instrument (HERCI).

Schedule updates will appear in the AMSAT News Service Weekly Bulletins and will also be posted to the AMSAT-BB, AMSAT’s Twitter account (@AMSAT), the AMSAT North America Facebook group, and the AMSAT website at https://www.amsat.org/satellite-schedules/

AO-92 was launched on the PSLV-C40 mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India on January 12, 2018. For the past two weeks, the AMSAT Engineering and Operations teams have been testing the various modes and experiments on board. Testing has shown that both the U/v FM transponder and L-Band Downshifter work very well. The Virginia Tech camera has returned stunning photos and data from HERCI has been successfully downlinked.

AMSAT thanks the 178 stations worldwide that have used FoxTelem to collect telemetry and experiment data from AO-92 during the commissioning process. The collection of this data is crucial to the missions of AMSAT’s Fox-1 satellites. Please continue to collect data from AO-85, AO-91, and AO-92.

CubeSats carrying amateur radio payloads were among the 31 satellites successfully launched on January 12 at 0359 UT on the ISRO PSLV-C40 mission from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.

Two of the CubeSats, Fox-1D and PicSat, carry amateur radio FM transponders, but neither is yet available for general amateur use. The PicSat FM transponder is unusual in that instead of a CTCSS tone it requires a 1750 Hz tone burst to activate. The 1750 Hz tone burst used to be popular on IARU Region 1 FM repeaters in the 1980s and 90s before the widespread use of CTCSS.

CNUSail-1, built by students at the Chungnam National University in Korea, carries a deployable sail. The students have requested the help of radio amateurs in receiving the 437.100 MHz 9600 bps BPSK beacon, further information is available at https://sites.google.com/view/cnuusg

JE9PEL lists these frequencies for the satellites carrying amateur radio payloads:

Shankar A65CR/VU2SWG reported coping the Fox-1D satellite voice beacon on the morning pass at 30 deg elevation in Dubai using a TH-F7 with standard rubber duck. YL voice with satellite identifier. Very short burst with fluctuating carrier.

Madhu A65DE also copied Fox-1D from Fujairah, North of Dubai.

Picture taken by Fox-1D AO-92 on January 13, 2018

AMSAT North America has issued a statement formally designating Fox-1D as AO-92:

Fox-1D, a 1U CubeSat, is the third of AMSAT’s five Fox-1 CubeSats to reach orbit, being preceded by AO-85 (Fox-1A) and AO-91 (RadFxSat / Fox-1B). Fox-1D carries the Fox-1 U/v FM transponder, with an uplink of 435.350 MHz (67.0 Hz CTCSS) and a downlink of 145.880 MHz. In addition, Fox-1D carries several university experiments, including a MEMS gyro from Pennsylvania State University – Erie, a camera from Virginia Tech, and the University of Iowa’s HERCI (High Energy Radiation CubeSat Instrument) radiation mapping experiment. Fox-1D also carries the AMSAT L-Band Downshifter experiment which enables the FM transponder to be switched to utilize an uplink of 1267.350 MHz (67.0 Hz CTCSS).

Fox-1D was sent aloft as a secondary payload on the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s PSLV-XL rocket as part of the PSLV-C40 mission. Fox-1D was one of thirty-one satellites successfully deployed on this launch.

Since Fox-1D has met all of the qualifications necessary to receive an OSCAR number, I, by the authority vested in me by the AMSAT President, do hereby confer on this satellite the designation AMSAT-OSCAR 92 or AO-92. I join amateur radio operators in the U.S. and around the world in wishing AO-92 a long and successful life in both its amateur and scientific missions.

I, along with the rest of the amateur community, congratulate all of the volunteers who worked so diligently to construct, test and prepare for launch the newest amateur radio satellite.